OLD CHATHAM QUAKERS
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2025-2026 Draft OCMM Slate

2025-2026_draft_ocmm_slate.pdf
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2024 State of the Meeting Report

approved_som_2024.pdf
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Slides and Notes from the Deep Hospitality Meeting for Learning Feb. 2, 2025

points_raised_in_large_group_discussion_of_3_queries_on_“deep_hospitality”.pdf
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deep_hospitality.pdf
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Notes from Deep Hospitality Part 2

2025-03-02_deep_hospitality_ii_meeting_for_learning.pdf
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Slides from Quakerism 101 November 24, 2024

4th_revision_presentation_2.pdf
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Results from the Old Chatham Meeting for Worship Options Survey

2024-09-21_ocmm_meeting_for_worship_options_survey_results.pdf
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Slides from Listening in Tongues June 2, 2024

listen_tongues_finalfinal_edit_2024_06_05.pptx
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listen_tongues_finalfinal_edit_2024_06_05.pdf
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Approved 2023 State of the Meeting

ocmm_2023_sotm_report.pdf
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Friends Assisting Friends

friends_assisting_friends_minute_revised_2018_09.pdf
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friends_assisting_friends_review_form.pdf
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Slides from Brauns' presentations on Palestine Israel 2024-01

slides_from_brauns_presentations_on_palestine_israel_2024-01.pdf
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Expectations for MM Committees and Their Minutes

2023-11-26_expectations_for_mm_committees_and_their_minutes.pdf
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Vocal Ministry in the Society of Friends by Mark Wutka

mark_wutka.pdf
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State of Society Report 2022

2022_state_of_the_society_for_old_chatham_monthly_meeting_approved_2023-04-09.pdf
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Proposed Statement on Abortion and Reproductive Rights - Approved April 23, 2023

ocmm_abortion_and_reproductive_rights_discussion_2023-04-23.pdf
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Non-Violent Solutions to World Conflict

non_violent_solutions_to_world_conflict.pdf
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Child Protection Policy

child_protection_policy-approved_10_aug_2014-1.pdf
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child_protection_training_workshop_mar_2017.pdf
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child_protection_training_-_role_play_scenario.pdf
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2021 State of Society Report

2021_approved_state_of_society_statement.pdf
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Zoom Instructions

zoom_instructions.pdf
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2021 State of Society queries

Dear Friends:
The 2021 State of Society queries are intended to speak to a range of meetings/worship groups (unprogrammed, pastoral, prison, etc.) and at-large members of the yearly meeting (who will be asked to respond to the state of society queries). When we use “you” in the queries, it is speaking to any or all who may be responding to the queries as communities or as individuals. We encourage you to engage with the queries that speak to you and ignore those that do not resonate or apply to your condition.  Where your worship community finds discomfort and worry we hope that descriptions of that are included in your report.  If your worship community is experiencing conflict we ask you to be open to sharing about that. If your monthly meeting is considering changing to an executive meeting or worship group, laying itself down, or making other major changes, please include in your report the opportunities and challenges you have faced in this process.   
As your worship community comes together  to consider these queries, consider how we inspire each other to listen to the richness of diverse voices and discern how to meet the challenges of this time.
Following the queries are prompts for your worship community to consider in its response. Address those that are meaningful. 
Meetings are asked to return their responses by April 15, 2022 to [email protected].​
Queries: 
  1. In the past year, what hope, opportunities, stumbling blocks, joys, sorrows, traumas, and/or spiritual awakenings and growth have you* experienced? What has surprised you*? Have you* experienced hope, concern, or uncertainty for the future? What vision (if any) do you* have or imagine for the future?


  2. How have you* addressed the realities, fears, and practical nuts & bolts of meeting during the Covid-19 pandemic as a worship body or as an at-large member?


  3. How has addressing social and political concerns, social justice, personal accountability, political polarization (including structural patterns) --whether in society or your meeting community--affected the spiritual life of the community/at-large member?


  4. If you* have engaged in anti-racism work, how have you* spiritually addressed and integrated becoming actively anti-racist (through worship, discernment, programs etc.)?  What spiritual challenges have you* encountered in this work? What might you* need from the Yearly meeting to deepen this work?


  5. We invite you* to share ways the yearly meeting can support the spiritual life of your worship community or anything else you* would like to share.  
 
Prompts: (questions you might consider; don’t feel obliged to address all questions)
  • Worship
    • What changes in worship practice have occurred? 
    • How has vocal ministry been affected?
  • Community Life
    • Has your worship community had successful new experiments, disappointments or challenges?
    • What impacts have there been on demographic groups in your worship community, including young adults, families, older members, distant Friends?
    • How are connections to the worship community being maintained?
    • How has your first day school been affected? 
    • What losses are you grieving?
    • For at-large members, how has your spiritual life been sustained? 
    • If the worship community is affiliated with a school, how, if at all, has that relationship changed?
  • Financial
    • Are there financial changes your worship community has experienced in the past year?
    • How does the budget support the spiritual life of the worship community? 
    • What changes, if any, has the worship community experienced (for example, meeting budget goals, annual contributions, rental income etc.) 
  • Witness
    • What witness/social action activities have begun, continued or been reinvigorated? 
    • How has your meeting addressed anti-racism work? climate crisis work? health & equity work? Other?
  • Meetinghouse
    • If applicable, how has the worship community’s relationship to the meetinghouse changed or been enhanced?
*When we use “you” in the queries, it is speaking to any or all who may be responding to the queries as individuals or as communities.

Ad hoc State of Society committee for Ministry Coordinating Committee Mary Pugh Clark, Lu Harper, Mary Pagurelias, Jan Phillips, Anne Pomeroy
 

Slides from Spee Braun's Meeting for Learning concerning Ukraine March 20, 2022

humanitarian_help_to_ukraine_mfl_2022-03_final.pdf
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Slides and Notes from Melinda Wenner Bradley's Dec.  9, 2021 Presentation

melinda_wenner_bradley_slides.pdf
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melinda_wenner_bradley_notes.pdf
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Draft NYYM Statement on Becoming an Anti-Racist Faith Community    

NYYM welcomes our comments directly in the draft document.

Dear Friends: 

One of the actions faith communities can take in becoming actively anti-racist is to make a public statement of intention. For those connected to NYYM, the impact of such a statement would go beyond the words themselves, inviting each person to consider deeply what this might mean for yourself, for your meeting or community, and for our yearly meeting. In hopes that NYYM will be open to making such a statement of intention, a Draft NYYM Statement on Becoming an Anti-Racist Faith Community will come to Summer Sessions 2021 for reflection and the initiation of an extended period of discernment. 

This draft statement is being brought by a group which formed nearly a year ago, the Anti-Racism Statement Task Group, a multi-racial group of Friends spanning more than 50 years in age and including people from all three coordinating committees and from several monthly meetings and regions. The group will provide additional resources to support discussion and discernment by committees and monthly meetings over the coming year. 
We ask that you focus on how you can engage with anti-racism work, what that will mean for you and your meeting, and to respond in that light. The task group intends to share queries and resources to assist with your reflections, and to collect reports from meetings and committees that consider the statement over the course of the year. Based on those responses, the group expects to bring a revised minute back for consideration at yearly meeting sessions in 2022.

In Friendship,
The Anti-Racism Statement Task Group

Following is the text of the draft:

Draft NYYM Statement on Becoming an Anti-Racist Faith Community     July 5, 2021

 As Quakers, we place our faith in the Living Spirit and seek to live in ways that recognize the value and dignity of all life and each person. Friends’ faithfulness is rooted in continuing revelation, in being broken open by the power of the Spirit calling us into new ways of living. New York Yearly Meeting believes that we are being called to a profound kind of change, to create a vision and experience of collective liberation.

Race has no scientific or genetic basis and was invented to divide and turn people against one another for the purpose of exploitation. Notions of racism and white supremacy permeate our society, our communities, and ourselves, undermining our faith that there is that of God in everyone. 

New York Yearly Meeting acknowledges that Quaker communities have often perpetuated racist practices while at the same time many Friends opposed racism over the years.  Some New York Yearly Meeting Friends enslaved Black people, benefited from migrant labor, or taught at or supported Native American boarding schools. By contrast, other Friends struggled to end the institution of slavery or establish civil rights for everyone. Both individual Quakers and meetings in New York Yearly Meeting have caused great harm by remaining complicit in racist systems, historically and today. 

Friends of Color have spoken up over the years about being marginalized and devalued by white Friends. One Friend wrote “I experienced joy in being in community with Friends … but also pain when Friends did not have a clue that their behavior was often hurtful and racist.” White Friends, who see themselves as good people committed to equality, often feel offended when told that their behaviors are racist or that Quaker policies and practices oppress Friends of Color. We cannot avoid the reality that there are people who are oppressed, not merely out in the world, but also within our faith community. 

Many practices and norms in American Quakerism are rooted in white supremacy. White Friends may be blind to oppression and racism that happen within our community. White Friends often do not notice when Friends of Color are passed over for service or positions of leadership. White Friends may reject what a Friend of Color says because they prioritize their own comfort over what the Friend has to say. These kinds of person-on-person racism are embedded in the structural racism that permeates American society as well as the Society of Friends. 

As a yearly meeting, we commit to work toward becoming an actively anti-racist faith community. 

Living into this commitment calls us to develop new insights and practices for what it means to be an anti-racist faith community. We are united in our longing to heal from the harms of white supremacy and our grief that racism is an obstacle to authentic community in the Yearly Meeting and beyond. 
We recognize that words without action accomplish little. We commit to naming and taking tangible actions to transform the culture of our yearly and monthly meetings and ourselves as individuals to more fully align with Spirit in liberation, justice, and joy. 

May we be faithful.

The BlackQuaker Project Challenges Quakers on Racial Justice:

The BlackQuaker Project Challenges Quakers on Racial Justice:
Retrospective/Reparatory Justice and a Justice Testimony--
Necessary Steps for Peace and Equality in the Society of Friends
https://www.theblackquakerproject.org/
Sept. 14, 2021
 
Can there be peace without justice? Can there be equality without justice? Just as the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Board declared in our 2008 proclamation of “peace with justice,” our ministry asserts that there cannot be. Hence, the BlackQuaker Project (BQP) seeks to return justice to its rightful place, front-and-center, in the testimonies of the Religious Society of Friends (RSOF). We also urge the RSOF and fellow activists to implement retrospective justice to atone for the hundreds of years of harm, exploitation, and dehumanization to persons of African descent worldwide.
 
Drawing from British Friend Adam Curle’s 1981 Swarthmore (UK) Lecture, we agree that justice has a dual meaning: “one, spiritual—righteousness, the observance of the divine law; the other [secular]—fairness, righteous dealing.” We feel justice to be necessary if we are to begin changing the politically corrupt, racialized, and profoundly unequal society in which we live.
 
Our ministry challenges Friends to place the Justice testimony front-and-center in monthly, quarterly, and yearly meetings. For too long this crucial testimony has remained out of mind while Friends internalize such acronyms as “SPICES,” which mislead about the essence of Quakerism. First created by the Friends Council on Education, according to Friend Arthur Larabee, SPICES was designed to teach pre-university, non-Quaker students at Quaker schools about the essentials of Quakerism. We feel this acronym is inaccurate as it does not include Justice. As a temporary remediation, we suggest, tongue-in-cheek, the use of “SPICES with JaM,” meaning “Simplicity, Peace, Integrity (Truth), Community, Equality, Stewardship with Justice and Mercy” while we work towards a permanent solution. However, we do not believe that Quakers necessarily need an acronym to summarize our diverse beliefs and practices, and we encourage RSOF members and attenders to move towards eliminating SPICES from our thinking and articulation.
 
To achieve both equality with justice and peace with justice, we implore Friends to develop and to implement an educational and action program of retrospective and reparatory justice. As defined in our pamphlets, Facing Unbearable Truths (2008) and Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives (2020), retrospective justice refers to efforts to provide justice to victims or descendants of victims of “crimes against humanity” years, decades, or centuries after they occurred. In the case of African Americans, this refers not only to chattel slavery and the transAtlantic slave trade but also to the numerous other horrors of white supremacy which followed, such as Jim Crow, the razing of Black communities (infamously including Tulsa), severe housing and education discrimination in the implementation of the post-World-War II GI Bill, and the present state crimes of police brutality and mass incarceration. To accomplish retrospective or reparatory justice, we recommend the following steps outlined in the 2006 Brown University Report, Slavery and Justice:
 
1. The Formal Acknowledgement of an Offense: The Religious Society of Friends needs to acknowledge formally that Quakers have been slave owners, that many Quakers were supporters of the transatlantic slave trade, and that other Quakers and Quaker meetings profited directly from enslavement and the eras of economic exploitation, human degradation, and dehumanization that followed.
 
2. A Commitment to Truth-Telling: Friends must remember our original name “The Religious Society of Friends of Truth” as we collectively shoulder the responsibility of telling the truth, in all its complexity. This includes memorializing our history so that we do not forget past injustices.
 
3. The Making of Amends: Friends must be dedicated to reconciliation, as well as social, economic, psychological, cultural, and political rehabilitation and healing.
 
We are heartened that in recent months, USA and UK Quakers have begun to translate their awareness and knowledge of collective Quaker culpability into action that seeks to atone for past misdeeds. On 10 May 2021, Abington Monthly Meeting in Pennsylvania approved a “Minute of Reconciliation,” formally recognizing that the Meeting had profited from the slave trade and committing to reparatory justice (read here). Britain Yearly Meeting has agreed to three goals as they reckon with their involvement in the slave trade: “to be an anti-racist employer; to build anti-racism into the design of work programs; and to support Quaker meetings and communities on anti-racism work.”
 
Additionally, the Rowntree Society of England has launched an investigation into how their charitable trust benefited from “slavery, unfree labour, and other forms of racial exploitation during the eras of colonialism and apartheid.” On 15 April 2021 Rowntree released a preliminary report of their findings (read here). Most recently, Alaska Friends Conference has adopted a Minute of Commitment to Racial Justice, inspired by our 2008 Weed lecture-pamphlet, Facing Unbearable Truths. The Minute can be found as an attachment here. Finally, the American Friends Service Committee, Friends General Conference, Friends Council on Education, and Pendle Hill have created an anti-racist coalition. We wish them well and look forward to learning how they will deal with systemic violence and systemic racism, generally absent in previous Quaker efforts, which tended to deal only with symptoms and not causes.
 
Write to us at [email protected] with any comments, suggestions, or questions you may have about how F/friends can become involved in the process of retrospective justice, and in the process of putting our justice testimony front-and-center as we aim at achieving racial justice. For more on retrospective or reparatory justice, see Weaver’s Pendle Hill pamphlet, Race, Systemic Violence, and Retrospective Justice: An African American Quaker Scholar-Activist Challenges Conventional Narratives (Oct. 2020) and our Friends Journal article, “A Proposed Plan for Retrospective Justice” (Jan. 2021). Also consider visiting our website and signing up for our mailing list here.
 
-- The BlackQuaker Project
 
https://www.theblackquakerproject.org/

Draft Statement of Support for #Black Live Matter

opj-draft_blm_7__1_.pdf
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Proposed Meetinghouse Landscape Plan

meeting_grounds_plan.pdf
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Draft State of the Meeting 2020 - April 2021

som_ocmm_2020-1rm.pdf
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Reopening Guidelines

good_news.pdf
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Reopening Guidelines for Friends Arriving with Children

reopening_guidelines_for_people_arriving_with_children.pdf
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Approved Meetinghouse Reopening Plan

old_chatham_meetinghouse_reopening_plan_approved_2020-08-09.pdf
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Landscape Survey

landscape_survey.txt
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Draft State of the Society Report March 2020

draft_state_of_society_report_2019.pdf
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2019 State of the Meeting Report

state_of_old_chatham_meeting_2019_-_sb_edits.pdf
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2018 Fundraising Letter

2018_fundraising_letter.pdf
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Response from Sen. Schumer

sen_schumer_ltr.pdf
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Slides from Johan Winsser's Talk on Puritans and Quakers

dyertalkpowerpoint1.pdf
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Proposed NERM Charter and By-laws

proposednermcharterandbylaws.pdf
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2017 State of the Meeting Report

ocmm_stateofmeeting.pdf
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Single Payer Healthcare FAQ

single-payer_faq_2016.pdf
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NYYM Year in Review

nyym_year_in_review.pdf
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Lenten Service Message

lent_service_message.pdf
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Draft State of the Meeting Report 2016

draft_state_of_the_meeting_2016.pdf
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State of the Meeting Report 2015

sotm.15.2.pdf
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Draft Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund Bill Letter

tonko_peace_ltr.pdf
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Letter to the Register Star and other local papers

shared_security_letter_on_letterhead.docx
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Books for Children List

books_for_fds_children.pdf
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